As a former Southampton manager Alan Pardew knows all about the strength of the south coast club's academy and now he is determined to ensure his current employer uses the power of education to try to emulate the success at Newcastle United.

"The thing that highlights academies isn't players coming through, because they do," said Pardew. "We've got Paul Dummett, Steven Taylor, Shola and Sammy Ameobi. But what you really need is exceptional players to come through and that's what Southampton have done.

"They've had Theo Walcott, Gareth Bale, Luke Shaw and Adam Lallana and it makes a huge difference. We haven't really ticked that box since I've been here but I can think of two players in our academy who, depending on their development, could be exceptional."

Newcastle's manager has some interesting ideas as to why Southampton have outstripped his club in the youth development sphere. "They have a huge catchment area and it's a different type of catchment area," he said. "There is a big working-class community down there but there are also a lot of middle-class kids who have good educations.

"The players who come out of Southampton are quite intelligent and there might be something in that. We have to put more intelligence into our players here. That's another side of the academy. It's very important to not just look after the football side of it but to also bring the right personalities through. We want them to be level-headed. Look at Bale, Walcott, Lallana, Shaw, they're all comfortable with the media, they're all together sort of guys. That's not down to location. That's down to education."

Not that good schools, or middle-class communities, are exclusive to southern England. There are plenty of both throughout the north-east and Pardew suspects his club should perhaps follow Southampton's lead and tap into them before identifying more Fraser Forsters.

The Celtic and England fringe goalkeeper is a Tyneside-bred QC's son and old boy of Newcastle's Royal Grammar who has proved arguably the most successful recent product of the St James' Park academy.

Keen as Newcastle are becoming on developing educated boys, Pardew – whose side travel to Southampton on Saturday – knows that, especially in the modern world, temperament is at least equally important.

"Look at Ross Barkley at Everton," he said. "He has a stable character and that's important. Particularly in today's game and media environment. More so than ever today, the game has such a huge profile. You need to have a stable character or you are going to find yourself in trouble. Paul Gascoigne would have found it far harder in today's game to have been Gazza."